Laura Klein had all the players in their places, tiles counted and ready to go when she realized something unusual: we were early! The round wasn't slated to being yet. No big deal, really, but the tourament's director wasn't in the room yet. Before someone suggested that Matt Graham (United States) do his standup act, Charlie walked into the room and got an applause. Soon thereafter the games began.

Soon after his return, a director call was made from table 18. Turns out that a tile fell out of the bag quite by mistake. Ensuring that both players concurred on the tile out of the bag error, Charlie just told them to put it back in. If only all director calls were that easily resolved!

At table 2, Bob Lipton (United States) defeated Brian Cappelletto (United States) 420-300. In time trouble this game, Brian lost 20 points off his score for the clock. Bob's annotator points out his two bingos: GEODETIc through the O for 61 and eSTRONE for 72. Uncharacteristic for him, Brian had no bingos this game.

Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (Thailand) lost to Steve Polatnick (United States) this round in a big way, 339-530. Pakorn kindly pointed out an exciting string of high-scoring plays made my Steve: SEAWOMAN through the W for 77, TAnGRAMS through the A for 81, RUNLETS for 81, JIRGA down the triple lane for 45, VIZIER for 38, CODEX for 62, and the cherry on the top of this beautiful play medley was QI for 31 points! Amidst this onslaught, Pakorn managed to get down BrINIEST to the T on the triple lane.

In a game that can only be described as parallel hell, Adam Logan (Canada) won a squeaker against Femi Awowade (Nigeria), 485-437. The game was much closer than the score indicates. Adam opened with OBEAH, Femi played DRANTED alongside making as many parallel plays as possible. Then Adam played CEASE, Femi KAS, Adam FIE, Femi DUPLY, Adam QAT, Femi VIG, and then, relenting, Adam opened up with UFO. The game proceeded from that point with Femi getting down ARCHAISE to the E for 80. Adam played the triple-triple RAIsONNE through an N for 122, bringing him to 29 points from Femi. Undeterred, Femi played GAUJE down the triple lane for 63, putting the then demoralized Adam down by 92 points. A couple of moves later, the strangest thing happened. Adam played MAINEST for 79, taking the last tile in the bag, an N. Femi held WILDIG? and he took a chance on WIDGE, which Adam challenged off. He then played HEN and got the tiles from Femi's rack, winning the game and turning his stomach lining inside out. Femi, still recovering from the loss, heard a voice behind him say, "Don't worry, Femi, next round you get an easy game." Femi turned around and said, "yeah, who do I play?" And Brett Smitheram (England) smiled and answered, "ME!" We all laughed.

I'm told that through 13 rounds, there has been this approximate challenge ratio: 460-acceptable to 290-not acceptable. Word Judge Rick Wong comments that this is lower ratio that he would accept for a 5-point penalty tournament. He would have expected a higher ratio difference, say 4-1. What this boils down to is that people are probably getting away with more phoney plays because the challengers are afraid to challenge.